a_ (or
Lark) legion. And very singular it was that Cato, or Marcellus, or some
amongst those enemies of Caesar who watched his conduct during the
period of his Gaulish command with the vigilance of rancorous malice,
should not have come to the knowledge of this fact; in which case we may
be sure that it would have been denounced to the Senate.

Such, then, for its purpose and its uniform motive, was the sagacious
munificence of Caesar. Apart from this motive, and considered in and for
itself, and simply with a reference to the splendid forms which it often
assumed, this munificence would furnish the materials for a volume. The
public entertainments of Caesar, his spectacles and shows, his
naumachiae, and the pomps of his unrivalled triumphs (the closing
triumphs of the Republic), were severally the finest of their kind which
had then been brought forward. Sea-fights were exhibited upon the
grandest scale, according to every known variety of nautical equipment
and mode of conflict, upon a vast lake formed artificially for that
express purpose. Mimic land-fights were conducted, in which all the
circumstances of real war were so faithfully rehearsed that even
elephants "indorsed with towers," twenty on each side, took part in the
combat. Dramas were represented in every known language (_per omnium
linguarum histriones_). And hence (that is, from the conciliatory
feeling thus expressed towards the various tribes of foreigners resident
in Rome) some have derived an explanation of what is else a mysterious
circumstance amongst the ceremonial observances at Caesar's funeral--
that all people of foreign nations then residing at Rome distinguished
themselves by the conspicuous share which they took in the public
mourning; and that, beyond all other foreigners, the Jews for night
after night kept watch and ward about the Emperor's grave. Never before,
according to traditions which lasted through several generations in
Rome, had there been so vast a conflux of the human race congregated to
any one centre, on any one attraction of business or of pleasure, as to
Rome on occasion of these triumphal spectacles exhibited by Caesar.

In our days, the greatest occasional gatherings of the human race are in
India, especially at the great fair of the _Hurdwar_ on the Ganges in
northern Hindustan: a confluence of some millions is sometimes seen at
that spot, brought together under the mixed influences of devotion and
commercial business, b